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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

2016 SAMUEL H. SCRIPPS/AMERICAN FESTIVAL AWARD PRESENTED TO

Durham, NC, January 19, 2016-The American Dance Festival (ADF) will present the 2016 Samuel H. Scripps/American Dance Festival Award for lifetime achievement to Artistic Director and choreographer, Lar Lubovitch. Established in 1981 by Samuel H. Scripps, the annual award honors choreographers who have dedicated their lives and talent to the creation of . Mr. Lubovitch's work, acclaimed throughout the world, is renowned for its musicality, emotional style, highly technical choreography, and deeply humanistic voice. The award will be presented to Mr. Lubovitch in a brief ceremony on Monday, July 11th at 7:00pm, prior to Lar Lubovitch Dance Company's performance at the Durham Performing Arts Center.

"We are exceptionally delighted to honor Lar Lubovitch with this award. For decades, his breathtaking work has drawn audiences with its big, full-bodied, fluid movement, and year after year, he continues to draw the best dancers in the industry to perform his gorgeous works," stated ADF Director Jodee Nimerichter.

Born in Chicago in 1943, Lar Lubovitch began his dance education at The in NYC in 1962, where his teachers were , José Limón, Anthony Tudor, and Donald McKayle, in whose company Mr. Lubovitch subsequently began his professional career.

In 1968, after performing in numerous modern, ballet, and jazz companies, he created the Lar Lubovitch Dance Company, now in its 48th season. For his company he has choreographed over 110 dances, celebrated for their musicality, humanity, and rhapsodic style. Called "a national treasure" by Variety and named "one of the ten best choreographers" by The New York Times, Mr. Lubovitch and his company have appeared over the years in almost every state in the US and toured internationally. During the 80s, the company toured under the auspices of the US State Department’s Cultural Exchange

Program throughout Eastern Europe and Asia. The Lar Lubovitch Dance Company has been the recipient of numerous National Endowment awards, including, in recent years, several "masterpiece grants" for the reconstruction of earlier seminal works.

His dances have also appeared in the repertoires of major dance companies throughout the world, including Theatre, , Paris Opera Ballet, Royal Danish Ballet, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Ballet, , Martha Graham Dance Company, and many others. His Othello, A Dance in Three Acts (1997), a co-production of and San Francisco Ballet, was broadcast on PBS' Great Performances and nominated for an Emmy Award. His dances on film also include Fandango, also broadcast on PBS (International Emmy Award), and My Funny Valentine, for the Robert Altman film The Company (American Choreography Award).

Lubovitch has also made a notable contribution in the field of ice dancing, beginning in 1978, with dances for Olympians John Curry, Peggy Fleming, and Dorothy Hamill, and in subsequent years for Paul Wylie, Brian Orser, and others. For Anglia Television in Great Britain, he created a full-length ice-dance special, The Sleeping Beauty, also broadcast on PBS and on the A&E netwo